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BIG THINGS DONE BY ONE LITTLE 
WOMAN 



Inscribed to Mrs. Martha S. Gielow, the Founder of 
the Southern Industrial Educational Association, 

RESTING IN PANAMA. 

BORNE from the drifting winter snow, 
To where fragrant tropic flowers blow, 
Where blue isles wait for morn 
And silver isles for night, 
Where orchids blue begem'd with dew 
Like Venus* slippers, peeping through 
Pale drifts of roses, lying still, 
While smiling sunbeams go at will ; 
I see her: dreaming dreams of rest. 
Born of beauty and love's behest. 



As if the "Silent Helpers" drew 
From rainbow-halls above, and flew 

To help her weary soul enwreathe 

Immortal things; and leave 
Its crown of thorns afloat on sunset sea — 
Till lost as a star grown radiantly, 

It shines o'er all, the golden even 

For glory 'tween earth and heaven. 



By trap-sf 9r 
The 'White House. 



Ah, yes, she dreams the Dream of Life, 
Which won the martjnr-armed noble strife, — 
That work, and love, shall rise above 

All else conceived 

Or yet believed. 
Of man for God — for human kind. . . . 
Too weary now: — ^tho' fain she'd find 

What bird, what waves and lily-bell 

May to human hearts yet tell ; 
As they live to greet, with music sweet 
All soul, and sense; while perfect rest 
In fragrant peace o'er brow and breast 

Wafts Southern incense day and night, 

And gives her world a soul of light. 

Lillian Rozell Messenger. 

March, 19th, 1914. 

Hammond Court, Washington, D. C. 





OA^iy^id^^ ^ 




Martha Sawyer Gielow 

Author of "The Light on the Hill," Etc. 

A brief resume of her achievements as author, dramatic 

reader, and founder of the Southern Industrial 

Educational Association. 

By LILLIAN ROZELL MESSENGER 



E C E N T times, 'tis no unus- 
ual thing for philanthropic 
men or women, in large al- 
truistic movements, to 
donate means to colleges, 
churches, schools, public 
highways, associations, and 
to combine large interests 
for public service. An or- 
ganized effort is often made 
to further some great work, 
through measures of Congress and State Legisla- 
tures. But it is an unusual record that tells of one 
little woman through whose vision and love of hu- 
man kind, a systematic effort to help the uplift of 
an entire people was initiated and brought to frui- 
tion. The Appalachian Mountain Range, extending 
from Pennsylvania, through Virginia, Carolina, 




'V'' 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama,-^some- 

times alluded to as "Appalachia America," — is peo- 
pled with the only unadulterated Americans we have. 
These Saxon-Americans, for generations, have been 
cut off from all participation in the progress of 
American life, by a Chinese wall of mountain isola- 
tion and poverty, literally an arrested civilization. 
To change their fate and help those pioneers al- 
ready in the field, to give these people a chance for 
life, liberty and development, has been the work 
of the founder of the Southern Industrial Educa- 
tional Association— Martha S. Gielow. To read of 
her indefatigable efforts and achievements, is not 
only inspiring, but worthy the profound interest and 
study of thinkers and humanitarians. Therefore, 
it is not only a loving tribute to her, but I feel it my 
duty to the whole world to send forth this "Appre- 
ciation." 

In England and elsewhere, in the best environ- 
ment in the United States of America, Mrs. Gielow 
has realized what opportunity and education mean 
in the development of mind, character and use- 
fulness. 

The experience which came from the neces- 
sity of caring for her own two children seemed di- 
rected by a Supreme Power, to fit her for the 
leadership of the work she has so nobly accom- 
plished. 

Martha Sawyer Gielow is a native of Alabama. 
Her birthplace, "Hazelwood," one of the old plan- 
tation homes of that State, is in Hale County, near 
Greensboro. Her father was Mr. Enoch Sawyer 



(North Carolinian), a Southern planter, a gentle- 
man of the old school, Mexican veteran and veteran 
of the Southern Confederacy. Her mother was Miss 
Sophie E. Barkley, daughter of Mr. Charles Bark- 
ley, of the Barkleys of England, banker, of Pensa- 
cola, Fla., and of Clara Louise Garnier, of France. 

The Sawyers, also originally English, are traced 
unbrokenly from the days of the Conqueror, as men 
of bravery and distinction. Mrs. Gielow's great- 
grandmother Sawyer was the daughter of General 
Gregory of Revolutionary fame. Mrs. Gielow is 
the twin sister of Mrs. Mary Pickens of Greens- 
boro, Ala., well known in the State for her splendid 
educational work while State Director of the Chil- 
dren of the Confederacy of Alabama. 

In the days when the South was still in the ashes 
of desolation ; when it was not respectable to he rich; 
when the old black mammy, though free and inde- 
pendent, was still a factor in the Southern home; 
when advantages that had made the mothers and 
fathers of the previous generation the most cultured 
men and women of the land were impossible to the 
sons and daughters; when sorrow or illness of one 
home was the concern of every home in those proud 
communities where each estate had lately been a 
principality, in its own right; when the spirit of 
past days faintly echoed in the "tournament barbe- 
cue" and undying hospitality; and under the strict 
teachings and environment of the Episcopal Church, 
to which the Sawyer family drove nine miles to on 
Sunday; — in such times and under such influences 
Martha Sawyer grew to womanhood. 



After a brief married life, Martha Sawyer Gie- 
low stood alone in the world, in the City of New 
York, without father, brother or male relative, with 
two children her only asset, to begin a career that 
must ever be an inspiration to womankind. Frail, 
timid and unprepared to battle for existence, her 
trust in a Supreme Power alone sustained her. With 
the high standard of womanhood and motherhood 
she represented to give her courage, and the devo- 
tion of her friends to comfort her, with proud deter- 
mination tc "do or die," she rallied her energies, 
and, with almost superhuman efforts, this courageous 
little mother entered the arena, fought and won a 
battle, heroic and grand. 

The inspiration to take up historical readings 
for children developed into finished programs of 
songs and stories of the Southland from her origi- 
nal writings, which brought her fame at home and 
abroad. 

With unaffected naturalness, coupled with a 
voice unsurpassed in tone and resonance, a perfect 
understanding of the old South, its customs and tra- 
ditions, she presented with vividness and dramatic 
skill the folk-lore of the plantation, with an origi- 
nality unique. Her monologues and stories compiled 
in her books. Mammy's Reminiscences and Old Plan- 
tation Days (now considered classics), were enthu- 
siastically received by the public, and favorably 
criticized by the press, which placed her, as an 
author of folk-lore, by the side of Joel Chandler 
Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and Ruth McEni*y 
Stuart. 



Henry Gaines Hawn, President of the Hawn 
School of the Speech Arts, Carnegie Hall, New York, 
who prepared Mrs. Gielow for the platform, and to 
whom she says she owes the success of her dramatic 
career, calls her a genius, and says "she is without 
a peer in her line of work." The late Henry Austin 
Clapp, Shakespearian reader and dramatic critic, 
wrote of her, in a long, analytical criticism in the 
Boston Herald: "There were never such lullabies 
as these, as they are interpreted by Mrs. Gielow's 
honeyed voice. No Venetian barcarole has such a 
swing, no classic cradle-song involves so tender a 
caress." 

While in London, Mrs. Gielow gave recitals on 
three occasions at Lady Northcote's, before differ- 
ent members of the Royal Family. She was the 
honored guest, as well as the "entertainer" of Lady 
Henry Somerset, Lady Jeune, Lady Aberdeen, 
Duchess of Bedford, Duchess of Sutherland, Bar- 
oness Rothschild, Sir Gilbert Parker, Mrs. Bowen, 
of Cowan Court, and many others. 

At Bagshot, the home of the Duke and Duchess 
of Connaught, Mrs. Gielow recited for the benefit of 
the Royal Church Bazaar, by the special request of 
Princess Christian, in the presence of the entire 
Royal Family, including Her Majesty Queen Vic- 
toria, receiving an ovation of appreciation and 
thanks from these Royal hosts. 

On her return to the States, Mrs. Gielow found 
herself indeed famous. The recognition of Royalty 
heralded unprecedented success. The clubwomen 
of her own State, Alabama, invited her to tour the 



State in company with Mrs. Johnston, wife of 
General R. D. Johnston, and one of the great women 
of the South, for the benefit of the Industrial School 
for Boys, near Birmingham, founded by Mrs. John- 
ston. 

Readings for Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. Pullman, 
Mrs. Joseph Bowen, and other notable women of 
Chicago, were followed by numerous engagements in 
exclusive homes of New York, Morristown, Phila- 
delphia, Washington, and other important cities. 
Chautauqua managers booked her from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific; the Bureau of Education of New 
York City engaged her for numerous lectures in 
the schools. 

With recognition and fame on two continents, 
this, then, was the woman, whose efforts for her 
own children being no longer necessary, when lucra- 
tive offers made it possible for her to have pro- 
vided for herself in later years, at the zenith of 
her power, took up the cause of the neglected chil- 
dren of the Southern mountains, which had been 
burning in her heart since girlhood, and founded the 
Southern Industrial Educational Association. Then 
began a crusade against illiteracy in the Appala- 
chians. The late General Stuart L. Woodford, ex- 
Minister to Spain, declared this to be "greater than 
the crusade of Joan of Arc, and the greatest mis- 
sionary movement of the century." It is worth 
while to record, in this age, when "funds for admin- 
istration" are the first provision of any movement, 
when "philanthropy" is conducted on scientific lines 
by well-paid trained workers, that one little woman. 



without a dollar to begin her enterprise, went forth, 
undismayed, as leader of this great movement. Mrs. 
Gielow, being a novice in the ways of organization 
work, did not realize the struggle ahead. Listening 
only to the cry in her heart for these children of the 
hills, she did not stop to reason or to rest. 

A woman of impulse, with no thought of self, 
with only a small saving, which was later lost in 
an investment, Martha Gielow began the second 
great adventure of her life. Believing that she need 
only to tell the needs for education and give the 
statistics of illiteracy, for money to pour into the 
mountains, she was not prepared for the first indif- 
ference and lack of interest in a matter which to 
her and her coworkers seemed so vital. The thou- 
sands that welcomed her "recitations" and "lulla- 
bies" with joy, who gave $100 a night for value re- 
ceived in folk-lore, did not care to hear talks on 
philanthropy, and had no money to advance on the 
education of the so-called "poor white trash." But 
Martha Gielow is a genius, as Professor Hawn says, 
and it was soon found out that the vernacular of 
the mountains could be as cofnpelling as the dialect 
of the plantation, and her stories of the children of 
the hills as thrilling as her monologues of the old 
mammies of the Southern nursery. 

There were workers in the mountains, but they 
were then unknown to Martha Gielow. Her plat- 
form was from the standpoint of what was needed, 
not from what was being done, for all that was then 
being done was as a drop in the bucket and is still. 
Again there were workers from the mountains ap- 



pealing for aid, but they then appealed mostly behind 
closed doors, and their stories of conditions were 
kept sacredly from the press, it being necessary so 
as not to prejicdice their return to the field. 

But here was a champion whose fearless clarion 
call for aid was to stir the nation. To understand 
and realize how little the world at large cared for 
these children entombed in the dark mountain fast- 
nesses, one has only to search the publications prior 
to 1905 to see how few appeals, if any, can be found 
in their behalf. Berea was struggling with the 
problem, so were Dr. Guerrant, Bishop Mclvor, 
Bishop Horner, and others. But the 'publicity work 
that has brought this particular cause into the lime- 
light and aroused the nation, was done by Martha S. 
Gielow. Educators interested in the betterment of 
Southern colleges, high schools and universities, and 
negroes, did not include the primary and industrial 
training of the rural and isolated mountain districts. 

The census for 1900 reveals a shameful neglect 
of what should be the most important work of the 
nation. It was the startling statements in these sta- 
tistics, and the cry for light from those dark cor- 
ners, that was tugging at the heartstrings of Martha 
Gielow. She had spent the year before her marriage 
in the East Tennessee mountains. Here she met 
these kindly mountain people and loved them. In 
the mountains of North Alabama, Virginia, North 
Carolina and Georgia she also saw, pondered and 
determined. 

An article from her pen, written in 1885, in be- 
half of the uplift of these people, is still extant. 



In 1903, while filling engagements in the Thou- 
sand Island Park Chautauqua, Mrs. Gielow was in- 
vited to take part in a missionary meeting. With 
the exception of herself, all of the speakers were 
from the foreign field. Coming last on the program, 
she poured out an impassioned appeal for home mis- 
sions, telling the needs of those cut off from educa- 
tion, progress, and civilization in the mountains of 
our own land. The audience was electrified; men 
climbed to the platform over the footlights to shake 
her hand, and she was given a rousing demonstra- 
tion. Rev. Dr. Phelps, President of the University 
of Syracuse, chairman of the meeting, said to her: 
"Sister, do you not see the finger of God pointing you 
to your work?" 

In 1905, when, as I have stated, in the zenith of 
her fame, when lucrative opportunities in her dra- 
matic work were still pressing upon her, Martha 
Gielow decided that the time had come for her to do 
the mission work she had long contemplated. She 
went first to a wealthy woman in New York City, 
for whom she had given folk-lore readings. This 
lady was a philanthropist and noted for having or- 
ganized many charities; but she declined to help 
organize a movement for the "poor whites of the 
South." "Go to your own people," she advised, "and 
organize, then come North and seek aid." Greatly 
disappointed, realizing her own inexperience in or- 
ganization work, trusting only in the pure, unselfish 
motive that urged her on, Martha Gielow left New 
York and went to Washington, where she deter- 
mined to make her future headquarters, and start 



her work. In Washington, Mrs. Gielow was of- 
fered the President-Generalship of a little organiza- 
tion purported to be for this mountain cause. After 
much delay in considering it, she declined the propo- 
sition and proceeded to carry out her original idea, 
and, with a few devoted followers, organized her 
own association and secured her own charter, with 
eight charter members, on December 27th, 1905. 

Mrs. Gielow returned to New York in February, 
1906, to carry her message to the good people of 
that city, and to form a New York branch of the 
association. The first to respond to her appeal 
was Mrs. Algernon Sydney Sullivan, whose wonder- 
ful work for the Children's Hospital of New York is 
an inspiration to all others. After several meetings 
in her parlors, to hear Mrs. Gielow present the 
cause, Mrs. Sullivan organized the New York Auxil- 
iary and was made its President. This Auxiliary, 
with its splendid board of fifty women, is the most 
important branch of the Association. It has many 
distinguished honorary members and has brought in 
much money for the cause. Mrs. Gielow is an Hon- 
orary President of this branch. 

The first leaflet, A Message, sent out in 1905 to 
the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was writ- 
ten by Martha Gielow, and was followed by the 
second leaflet from her pen. An Appeal to the Nation 
for the Nation's Children, giving statistics furnished 
her by Mr. Harris, then Commissioner of Educa- 
tion. Many editions of this Appeal, added to and 
revised, were scattered broadcast. 



Articles from her pen regarding the organization 
she had founded and was so ably promoting were 
requested by the Trotwood-Taylor Magazine, The 
Southerner, The American Educational Review, and 
by numerous newspapers. These articles were will- 
ingly contributed for no other consideration than 
the publicity of the Association and its altruistic 
purpose. 

Much enthusiasm greeted Martha Gielow in her 
native State, Alabama, where she secured hundreds 
of members. She was made a member for life of 
the State Federation of Clubs and a delegate at 
large for life. In Baltimore she organized the 
Maryland Auxiliary, a most valuable branch; also 
a Philadelphia Auxiliary on December 2, 1913. This 
youngest branch is doing great work. The Cali- 
fornia Auxiliary also renders splendid aid. 

Notwithstanding her varied arduous duties, Mar- 
tha Gielow spent many weeks of her summers in 
the mountains, riding hundreds of miles up the 
beds of creeks, to visit schools and mountain cabins, 
miles and miles away from any railroad, seeing 
the people and securing facts and material for her 
lectures. 

But to educate the public and win its sympathy 
and aid to a new and unpopular cause is about the 
hardest undertaking known; especially, when thou- 
sands of other philanthropies and organized char- 
ities are calling for aid in every direction. Money 
and friends are gathered in by hard effort. The 
great "Mountain Foundation" for primary and in- 
dustrial education, which Martha Gielow and her 



coworkers dreamed of, failed to materialize. Yet 
no other organized effort had sent hundreds of 
scholarships to poor mountain girls and boys that 
otherwise would have had no chance, and no other 
organization created for the purpose was helping to 
place teachers in carpentry, furniture making, weav- 
ing, domestic science, etc., in the remote struggling 
mission schools, unable to furnish these most vital 
departments. No other organization held mass 
meetings, just for this work, and sent out literature, 
and had an inspired leader in the field appealing for 
a chance for these neglected children of the nation, 
remote from opportunities ! This enthusiastic little 
woman was heard at many Chautauqua educational 
conventions, at Pinehurst, Knoxville, Chattanooga, 
Birmingham, and Mobile, etc., where she fearlessly 
gave the tragic per cent, of native-born white illiter- 
acy of the shut-in English Americans, urging the 
advocates of higher education to give attention to 
the important foundation work, in these rural and 
mountain districts. 

Thousands of people in churches, schools, clubs 
and D. A. R. Chapters listened to her appeals, while 
the distant mountain workers wrote her words of 
encouragement for bringing an organization to their 
rescue. Many mountain schools aided by the Asso- 
ciation blessed her name. 

The American Educational Review, commenting 
on her stirring addresses before educational bodies, 
called her "The Little Mother of the Appalachians," 
and published in full, with a forceful foreword, her 
little story. Old Andy the Moonshiner, her gift to the 



Association to use as campaign literature. More 
than two thousand dollars has this little story added 
to the revenue of the organization; while the story 
itself, founded on fact, has carried its message to 
thousands and brought great interest to the cause. 
It is worthy of note that this little story, which 
has been of such wonderful assistance in the work, 
was written by the author, when lying helpless with 
a broken knee. The accident happened to her on 
her return from a dramatic reading, given for the 
benefit of the Association in Washington. Martha 
Gielow was inconsolable at this enforced inactivity. 
The New York Auxiliary had arranged a great mass 
meeting at the Hotel Plaza, where the Four Hundred 
were to hear her report on the work and tell of her 
trips of investigation to the mountain schools. Those 
present at that meeting will not forget the impres- 
sive moment when Bishop Horner, Missionary 
Bishop of North Carolina, asked the audience to rise 
and stand in silence while he invoked a blessing "on 
the little woman lying ill, whose place on the pro- 
gram no one could fill, and but for whom there would 
he no Southern Industrial Educational Association, 
and that great meeting would not then be gathered," 
It is also interesting to note that, while still hors 
de combat, this valiant little leader, while on 
crutches, organized the California Auxiliary in San 
Francisco, where she was taken when able to travel, 
to be cared for by her daughter, wife of a young 
naval officer then stationed on the coast. While 
there, Martha Gielow also addressed most of the 
important clubs of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa 



Barbara, and Los Angeles. She sent back hun- 
dreds of dollars to the Board at Washington. (This 
Board meets once a month to hear reports and 
disburse the funds.) 

This remarkable woman, whose leadership had 
achieved so much at large, found it necessary in 
1911 to establish the work upon a firm basis, at 
headquarters. Taking hold, she began a campaign 
in the Capitol, the details of which can never be 
adequately told, except in her own personal rem- 
iniscences. To infuse enthusiasm, to secure an 
office, to start the exchange of mountain products 
(her original idea), where weavings and baskets 
and all fireside industries of the shut-in cabin peo- 
ple could be sold; not only to help the work, but 
to be a means of attracting people to the head- 
quarters, where they could see and buy and learn of 
the cause, was the work of a master mind. With a 
genius and energy that I have never known ex- 
ceeded, Martha Gielow planned and constructed and 
manoeuvered, until almost every woman of impor- 
tance in the city was in personal touch with her 
work. The exhibit of mountain products, which 
was given space in the Exhibition Hall of the 
Southern Commercial Congress Exhibit in the South- 
ern Building, was owing entirely to her inspiration. 

Mountain State days were inaugurated, when 
the delegations from Alabama, Georgia, North Car- 
olina, Kentucky, and Virginia were especially re- 
ceived at headquarters to view the crafts. Moun- 
tain Day was celebrated by a letter she suggested 
and sent out, with the approval of the Board, to 



hundreds of clergymen, asking them to give part 
of a certain Sunday to the discourse of the moun- 
tain problem. Editors of the most important 
papers received copies with the request to print in 
their columns. 

A mountain play, from her pen, giving the story 
of the mountain people in a wonderful pageant of 
historic tableaux and symbolic figures, was pre- 
sented by both the Bristol School of Washington 
and Washington College, for the benefit of the 
work; giving, as stated by the press, "a most edu- 
cational and beautiful presentation of the mountain 
cause imaginable." By degrees, interest in the 
Capitol began to dawn. Successful card-parties by 
members and by chapters of the D. A. R. were 
given. Special appeals were made personally and 
by personal letters. 

Martha Gielow reminded me of a general, and, 
in fact, she was nothing less. I have never wit- 
nessed greater executive ability, greater ingenuity 
and determined effort. 

Articles continued from her pen. Educational 
Foundations, written by request for a special edi- 
tion of the National Daily, went out to thousands of 
readers, as did Industrial Settlement Schools, writ- 
ten by request for the Farmer's Wife, which maga- 
zine also printed her address. The Region of For- 
gotten Men, brought out in leaflet form by the New 
York Auxiliary. This article was reprinted in the 
California Woman, also her articles on Mother- 
hood in the Mountains, and Children of Hope, cop- 
ied from the Association Quarterly Magazine. 



These went out to thousands of new readers, giving 
a knowledge of the Association and its endeavors. 
Every word she spoke, every word she wrote, had 
some bearing on the work so dear to her heart. 
Her story, Uncle Sam, a most charming little book, 
is helping to carry the message far and near, A 
complimentary copy of this book, sent to Mrs. Rus- 
sell Sage by the author, brought a check of five 
hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars also came 
to the Association from one reader of her story, 
Old Andy, tne Moonshiner. I know of no othen 
books that have brought back such substantial evi- 
dences of their worth to the mountain cause. Her 
new book — The Light on the Hill — soon to be issued, 
is destined to complete her service to the nation and 
the nation's own. 

In securing the late Mistress of the White 
House, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, for Honorary Pres- 
ident of the Southern Industrial Educational Asso- 
ciation, and, through her, five thousand dollars a 
year for three years for a field secretary and his as- 
sistants, for coordinating and federating the 
schools, Martha Gielow gave the crowning stroke 
to her work of genius. The interest of this gra- 
cious first lady of the land brought national recog- 
nition to the organization, and her patronage of 
the mountain industries — by furnishing the Presi- 
dent's room in the White House with weavings from 
the Association office — has given an impetus to the 
sales of those products, and brought success that 
otherwise would have been impossible. 

Thus, by unswerving perseverance, under most 



trying difficulties, Mrs. Gielow has an organization 
launched, and its cause before the public. But the 
proud satisfaction she must feel at having accom- 
plished her purpose, has been secured at a serious 
sacrifice. The long strain of anxious effort has 
done its work, and Martha Gielow has broken down. 
The loss of her constructive leadership is irrepar- 
able; she was the inspiration, the soul, of the move- 
ment, and no one can take her place. We who have 
been members and coworkers with her feel that 
she justly merits the honor she receives, which 
is a small return — in fact, no return at all — for her 
heroic service. 

I know of no other woman who has so com- 
pletely forgotten her own interest in the interest 
of others, nor who, under such odds, has won 
grander achievements than Martha Sawyer Gielow 
of Alabama. Her name will go down in history, 
deservedly, among those who have done things 
worth while, and will be ever synonymous with the 
work of the organization she created, for the cause 
of the neglected mountain child. 



EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS OF 
"THE LIGHT ON THE HILL" 

Published by Fleming H. Revell Co.. 158 Fifth Avenue. N. Y. 

Rome, Ga., Tribune-Herald, Oct. 12, 1915 : 

The setting of the story is as beautiful, the love 
as strong, the principles as lofty and the sentiment 
as lasting as the eternal hills from which it is drawn. 

Washington Star, April 18, 1915 : 

Mrs. Gielow scores twice in The Light on the 
Hill, a very distinctive thing for any writer to do. 
This is not only a good story, but it is also an ef- 
fective propaganda. The romance springs from the 
love of a young mountain girl for a youth from the 
outside world. That which begins in an idyllic 
vein ends in the peculiar depth of suffering of which 
women alone know. After many years the daughter 
of these two becomes the "light on the hill," the 
means by which the mountain folks begin to come 
into touch with the busy and productive life of the 
plains below them. It is here that the author, in a 
pleasing story way, presses her religion of industrial 
education for the mountaineers to the front of one's 
interest and enjoyment. As fiction this is a vivid 
picture of the life and character of these people. As 
education it is forceful and appealing. 



Professor Henry Mixter Penniman, Berea College, 
Kentucky : 

Having spent twenty years, more or less, among 
the mountain people, I feel it almost a duty to call 
attention to this addition to American literature. 
The story is an interpretation of heartache and joy. 
The insight comes from intimate acquaintance with 
the pathos and potency of our Saxon log-cabin kin, 
dwelling in the Southern Appalachians. Life experi- 
ence comes to view at every turn. The moonshiner's 
side is pictured truthfully and with insight. Human 
values are revealed. Possibilities of mountain people 
appear in new light. Heartfelt sympathy of the 
author penetrates every page. The story-loving 
world will enjoy this interweaving of rustic and 
urban loves, hopes and ambitions. 



The Bookman, June, 1915: 

Old Andy the Moonshiner has a place in this 
new story by Mrs. Gielow, whose work among the 
Southern whites is so well worthy of commenda- 
tion, and whose books about "her people" are very 
vivid and real pictures of those strange souls who 
grow in the heart of the mountains and emerge 
from the squalor of poverty and the ravishments of 
disease, true and loyal American citizens, men and 
women of character and heart and latent physical 
strength. 



This tale is very touching. But it typifies the 
sort of thing that happens in a community where 
people have "no chance." Mrs. Gielow writes with 
the purpose of interesting the great American pub- 
lic in these unfortunate sisters and brothers, and 
certainly she makes a forceful play for sympathy 
when she comes to us with Old Andy, Uncle Sam and 
The Light on the Hill. 



The Lookout, Chattanooga, May, 1915 : 

Apart from its merit and charm as fictional 
writing, Mrs. Gielow's work possesses real educa- 
tional value and importance. It brings the log- 
cabin folk of the Southern Appalachians into the 
lifelight with startling distinctness; and from it 
those who desire — which should be 'most everybody 
— can learn a very great deal concerning those of 
whom they now know next to nothing — of men and 
women who live and love, who suffer and die, away 
from the beaten tracks and busy haunts of men. 



Western Recorder, July, 1915 : 

We do not know just when we have read with 
such pleasure and profit a modern novel. This story 
is well worth anybody's reading, so full of helpful- 
ness is it. If you would like to spend a few hours in 
helpful reading, you will not regret getting this 
book. 



standard, May 15, 1915: 

We are just coming to realize that among the 
mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee we have the 
purest Anglo-Saxon blood to be found in America. 
This story of the mountains and their people is a 
strong presentation of the latent resources to be 
found among these hills. There is pathos and trag- 
edy, but it is true to life. No stronger plea for 
schools and Christian influences for a people who 
have been caught in an eddy of the great Western 
movement could be made than is presented in this 
story. 



Christian Messenger. May 6, 1915 : 

The authoress has made such a complete study of 
the whole circle of this primitive people, that noth- 
ing seems to be omitted in order to convey to the 
reader the situation. There are pages that read 
more like history than story. It is only a pity that 
such a beautiful piece of writing, introducing such 
a pictorial civilization, should likely be overlooked in 
the huge pile of rubbish that seems to be the punish- 
ment of a generation that lacks ideals which would 
demand a Scott, a Dickens, or a Thackeray. 



The Continent, May 13, 1915: 

The author calls attention to the need of educa- 
tion and religion in the lives of the poor whites 
of the Appalachian Mountains. The book's didactic 



purpose is carried by a romantic plot. For enlight- 
ening the reader as to the conditions and manners 
of the mountain people, the story is excellent and 
its purpose realized. 

Christian Advocate, Sept. 16, 1915 : 

The book has to do with conditions — social, 
moral, physical, religious, political — among the 
"mountain whites" of the South. Mrs. Gielow knows 
the situation from the inside and she is rightly called 
"the Little Mother of the Appalachians." She is not 
revealing the condition among these people just to 
arouse and satisfy the curiosity of other folks, but 
to enlist the practical cooperation of these other 
people in solving one of our most difficult problems. 
There are some benighted folks who look upon these 
mountain people as "poor white trash," but this is 
leagues away from the fact. That degeneracy of a 
sort has ensued there can be no denial, but many 
of these mountain people have an ancestry of the 
most worthy type and under proper conditions of 
living they will bring honor to that ancestry. They 
have lacked the opportunity, but the doors are open- 
ing to them and they are entering in. Mrs. Gielow, 
who writes this romance of the Southern mountains, 
is the founder of the Southern Industrial Educa- 
tional Association and has been unwearying in her 
labors in this great cause of race redemption. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



015 897 180 P 



